Jewelry designed by the Danish designer Ole Lynggaard, on a piece of lava rock from the Etna vulcano on Sicily, Italy.

I wanted to show the beauty of the flower against a rough contrasting background and make the link between gold ore from the earth and gold processed into jewelry.

The challenge here was to make the middle with the diamond bright and attractive,
to avoid specular reflections and burned out area's in the highly reflective and curved petals,
and at the same time show the structure in the petals, so maintain enough details and shadow.

I put up a halogen light reflecting in an umbrella and shining through a white shower curtain,
to get a very soft light from above, like a softbox.

To maintain the structure in the petals I surrounded the setup with black velvet, all around,
approx. 50 cm high, to prevent the light from reflecting everywhere and eliminating the subtle shadows.

Editing : only crop, sharpen and save for web.